


And Penance More Will Do

by meanoldauthor



Series: Mean Old Lady [8]
Category: Fallout: New Vegas
Genre: Backstory, Gen, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Substance Abuse, The Divide (Fallout), longfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-24
Updated: 2016-05-24
Packaged: 2018-06-10 09:46:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 17,310
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6951364
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/meanoldauthor/pseuds/meanoldauthor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Even on a lonesome road, it's hard to escape the past</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

The town’s layout was… Hell. It was familiar, even scrapped. Adal shrugged and turned to ED-E. “I leave a couple years, the whole neighborhood goes to shit.”

He beeped, inquisitive. “No, that ain’t really fair. Hopeville didn’t have as many people. Not as many resources, no running water.” She left the building’s shelter, the cutting wind of the Divide making her hunch. The dust on the wind was metallic, foul, and made her eyes run. “But sure as hell wasn’t this bad.”  
—  
 _2268_  
“Aaaggh.” The sun hurt. Adal rolled over, shading her eyes, trying to make them focus. Dust, dirt and sun. She was outside for a change. That was nice, not like the time in Reno with the brothel… “Bleh.” Her mouth tasted like copper and socks, and there was a little runnel of blood going down her arm. Shit. She checked her hands, but there was none there, or even much bruising on her knuckles. Okay. That was good. Not like Junktown or Needles, either, that one had put her off Jet forever…

Adal licked her thumb and rubbed the blood out of her elbow. She felt snappish and drowsy from the Psycho comedown, and her skull throbbed. She rolled out from under the rock that had sheltered her, groaning, clutching her head as she tried to get her bearings. There was…dust to the north, dust to the south… what a coincidence, dust to the west…

But hey, there were rocks or something to the east, and she was pretty sure she had been headed that way. Maybe. Probably?

Out to Caliente, with gear for their geothermal whatsit, all the way from Shady. She tried to suck enough moisture into her mouth to spit out dust. “’No, I won’t take the Long 15,’” she muttered to herself, pulling out her canteen to swish water in her mouth. “’Let’s shoot up and try and find a shortcut.’ Fucking genius, you dumb bitch.”

She took the bandanna from her neck and shook it out, tying it over her head. It wasn’t much protection from the sun, but it was wicked out in this part of the wastes, and every bit of shade was welcome. Her eyes were fixed on the shadows ahead, stumbling along. Fuck Psycho, leaving her all dried out and tired. Her feet walked her the rest of the way, and it wasn’t until she had stepped into the shelter of a building that she raised her head, trying to orient herself. There were many of them, set up in a shallow valley. Adal cupped her hands to her mouth. “Hello the town!” She cringed at her own voice, and the echoes coming back. 

No reply. She shrugged and walked deeper into it. The town was decayed but not destroyed, and had the silence, the stillness of a place uninhabited for a long time. She called again, closer to the center, but the only answer was the sigh of wind, whipping reddish dust across the pavement. She shivered, sharply aware at how alone she was, in the hottest depths of the desert, in the shell of an Old World town.

Adal tread lightly on the road. ‘Ghost town’ was the phrase, for a place abandoned. She clutched her hatchet tighter, for all the comfort it brought. She’d seen dead towns, lost places, felt the chill as she wondered why they had fallen. Seen clues in bodies scattered, tableaus of the inhabitants’ final moments. Some were obvious, with bullet wounds and scattered casings. A well that reeked of rot and sickness. Stunted crops dried up in the earth. But here, there were no signs of struggle, or real violence. No bodies in the streets. Doors were closed, cars neatly parked, save for a few left on the road. It looked wholly undisturbed, as though frozen in a moment in time.

She walked in silence, almost reverent. She could feel the weight of centuries, among the ghosts of the Old World.


	2. Chapter 2

“Psycho’s a drug,” Adal told ED-E. “Makes you strong. Fast. And really fucking angry.”

She turned over the device in her hands. It looked a bit like a laser pistol, but trimmed down. The eyebot beeped, and she had to concentrate. Whatever hardware the Think Tank had left in her skull helped make sense of it, but it wasn’t perfect. “Well, I was pretty angry back then anyway. But get enough Psycho flowing, and you feel pretty near invincible on top of it.” She rubbed idly at the bend of her arm. “Felt good. Couldn’t find a lot here, but left with some Buffout to hold off the withdrawal. Got me through.”

She stood, hanging the detonator off her belt and picking up her shotgun. Bodies were strewn on the street, the marked men who had come to investigate the warhead going off. “Come on, I’m feeling better. Let’s go find this jackass with the radio.” ED-E played a jaunty little marching tune, and she grinned. It faded as she walked. That storefront had been someone’s home once. She remembered…

The eyebot bumped her shoulder. “Yeah, sorry.” She kept walking. “I don’t need to get misty-eyed out here.”

He whirred, questioning. “Well…there used to be people here. But whatever happened…” she shook her head. “No way they survived.”  
—  
 _2269_  
The land was different, on either side of the little basin. Dust and dirt on the west, mountains and hardpan to the east, a subtle divide in the land. Adal found herself making more trips through it rather than the Long 15. The route was grueling, but direct, and kept her from people when she was flying high. She built up caches to and from, stuffing them with whatever surplus she could scrape up, claiming an apartment in Ashton as a place to rest.

Adal was approaching from the east, praying she had left some Buffout in the next stash. Fixer was good enough for a while, but it made it pretty damn hard to keep anything down. Some help, the Followers. Last time she had been in Cali, they had tied her to a bed until she detoxed and wagged their fingers at her, but what did they know? Sanctimonious pricks, she doubted any of them had tried to come off Psycho themselves. Buffout was a better bet.

She knelt beside the metal box wedged between the rocks, hissing at the heat of it on her fingers. She used the handle of her hatchet to flip it aside, and stared into it, mouth open. Empty. _Empty_. The actual _fuck?_ Who would come out into the middle of the goddamn bug-humping Death-fucking-Valley to steal the shit she had put in this particular box?

Adal sat up, the sun beating down on her. Well, whoever it was knew fuck-all about covering their tracks, a scuffing trail left in the dust. She slashed at the air with her hatchet, stomping along their path. Oh, someone was going to hurt. Or get puked on. Fair odds at the moment.

The path led straight to the next cache, in the remains of a roadside station, a bank of rusted metal pumps standing like tombstones beside it. The building had sagged and drifted in the wind, sand piled against one side, but the doorframe still mostly upright. She stomped up to it, kicking up dust, and threw it open with a bang, waving her ax. “Was that your box?”

A group was clustered by the counter, sitting on the floor or on crates. They drew away, but none rose, no weapons were drawn. “I…what?” a man said.

She pointed back the way she had come. “Was that your freaking box? Full of all kinds’a useful crap _I_ was gonna use?”

They looked at each other. The talkative man shrugged, bewildered. “No?”

“They why’d’ja empty it out, dumbass?”

“We needed it. We’re starving,” he said. “And sick.”

Squaring up and ready to swing, Adal drew up short. They were six of them, men and women in rough, baggy clothes. A red X was painted on the front, some sort of uniform. Some were looking up at her in fear. The others stared through her with looks of dead indifference, exhaustion making their eyes dull, faces slack from sickness. Half-hidden beside one of the women, she spotted a child, tears in her eyes and hands pressed over her mouth.

“We didn’t know it belonged to anyone,” their leader said, hands raised. His dark skin was almost ashen, but even sunk deep in their sockets there was no fear in his eyes. “And we were in desperate need. If you’re going to deny us that, you might as well kill us now.”

“Yeah, well,” she muttered. Adal stuffed the hatchet into the back of her belt, hunching up. “Ask next time. The hell are you people?”

They traded looks, distrustful. “They’d have sent a man,” one of them said. “She can’t be with them.”

The chatty one nodded. “We are…were…slaves. Of Caesar’s Legion.”

It might have been the Fixer, but the words hit like a brick and she was reeling, knees locked and floor spinning. Adal clutched at the door frame. “You… _They’re here?”_

He shook his head, frowning at her. “Back East. We’ve been walking for weeks, trying to find somewhere safe.”

Adal nodded a little, vaguely. The ground was still unsteady, and she looked them over, searching their faces. No one familiar, staring back with uncertainty. She shut her eyes, and the nausea rose. “I know a place,” she said. She made herself sit slowly, rather than fall. “But it’s still damn hot out. I can take you there come night.”

They looked to each other again, shared nods. And one of them smiled.  
—  
“C’mon,” she called over her shoulder. “We got a ways to go.”

“We need to slow down,” the chatty man, Dalton, said. “Ma’am, we’re tired, all of us. We have to rest.”

“Don’t ‘ma’am’ me.” She turned back to him, arms folded. In the moonlight, he looked pale and sick, and the rest of the former slaves trailed even further behind. “It’s summer, man. Nights are short and days are hot, and the sun’s on its way up. We need to make time.”

He shook his head, hands on his knees. “We can’t.”

The others were catching up slowly, limping on sore feet and thin limbs. She threw up her hands. “I can’t slow the dawn! If you’re this weak, you won’t last the next day in the hot.”

Dalton straightened, grim. “Then we die here. At least we’ll be doing it free, not under the lash.” Adal tried to meet his gaze, but was forced to look down. “Do you understand? People don’t wrong the Legion and live.” His voice dropped. “Better we die here, now, than live in fear until they find us. And when they do? Do you know how they punish the ‘dissolute’? Ever _seen_ a man die on the cross?”

“Yes,” she said, voice harsh. “I’ve seen. You heard of Walker tribe? No, bet you havent. Legion saw to that.” The others had drawn level, looking between them. The man carrying the girl set her down to kneel in the dirt. “Come on.” She held out her hands. The girl, no more than six, was stiff as a board as she lifted her to her hip, but didn’t fight. Adal brushed her hair back from her forehead, a little stab of familiarity going through her, and had to swallow before she spoke. “Longer we bitch at each other, less ground we make up. I can’t carry all of you.”

Adal tried to keep her pace steady, slow. Behind her, she could hear them getting more spread out again, lagging. She shut her eyes. The illness from the Fixer hit her, and she opened them just as quickly. “ _Fuck._ Sorry.” The girl flinched away, and she tried to hold her more comfortably. She was still rigid, refusing to relax. Adal brushed at her hair again. “What’s your name, dearling?”

She was silent, hiding her face against Adal’s shoulder. “Okay.” That shouldn’t hurt. She didn’t know this girl. Adal looked back, the escapees straggling back. It was going to be a damn long walk.

She bowed her head. “Do you know any songs?” The girl hesitated, then shook her head. “Can I teach you one?” A pause, long enough that she thought she wasn’t listening. But with her face still hidden, she felt the slightest nod. “Long time ago, we used to sing these, to keep everyone in step.”

It had been a long, long time since she had sung one of the jodys, and she was shaky at first, soft. She forgot some of the words, humming along to the simple, steady tune. Adal glanced back, slowed her pace. The others gained ground, gradually. She could hear them trying to fall in step, just off cadence, but the sound of footfalls in time to hers made her voice falter.

They were slow, too weak from malnourishment and exposure to do more than shamble, but they managed to keep together. The sun rose, and she had to harass them into taking one more step, another, the girl still on her hip. Dalton, the strongest of them, nearly carried one of the men from the last cache to the town, legs giving out in the road. She dragged them both up and into the shade, lurid spots in her vision from heat and so dry her lips bled. She staggered into the nearest building, groping for water she had left on the shelf, so hot she had no more sweat.

One of the women died during the day, delirious no matter how much they tried to cool her, falling into convulsions. One of the men stared vaguely at the world, and the rest quietly agreed he would likely never be right again. Feet dragging, she tended to them, carrying back supplies from deeper in the town. They recovered, slowly, taking days before they could stand, forage for themselves. She left them in Ashton after a week, promising medicines, real food, clothes.

The town looked no different as she left. The ever-present, cutting wind still sent dust and sand slithering across the ground. The sun still shone down, hard and unforgiving.

It felt uneasy, now home to people brought in on the breath of a Walker song.


	3. Chapter 3

“I dunno if you can hear that guy, ED-E,” Adal said, grimacing as she sat down. “But tell you what, don’t think I ever met such a blowhard.” She snorted at his beep. “Yeah, that holotape was about an hour long.” He beeped again, a little sly. “I…well.” She wasn’t some girl, to blush like that. “So what if he’s got a hell of a voice?”

She peeled back her pant leg, exposing a messy, ragged Tunneler bite. ED-E hovered closer, warbling solicitously. She patted him. “Don’t worry. Stimpak and a nap and I’ll be good as anything.” She stuck the needle into her calf and lay back, staring up at the gloomy, reddish sky and waiting for the pain to fade. The eyebot drifted into view, humming softly. “No, not quite yet. You wanna hear more?” He bobbed on the spot, and Adal smiled. “Alright. I didn’t like them being there at first. The Divide was mine. But then more started showing up…”  
—  
 _2270_  
She nudged Dalton on the arm. “Who’re they?”

“Newcomers,” he said. She raised an eyebrow. He looked at her and shrugged. He would never lose that gauntness in his face from his time as a slave, but there was always a smile on his lips, a light in his eyes. “They say they’re dissidents from out west who heard rumors about us. But they made the hike out here, so they earned the right to stay.”

They stood a little awkwardly on the corner of the street. Mara, one of the founders, led them along. She gestured to the buildings as she walked, tattoos of some dead tribe stark on her skin . “Not many’v us here. Y’like a place, you take it, but’s on you to make it a livin’ home. Any goods y’find, y’can keep, but s’not taken kind if y’get greedy on your neighbor. Asht’n’s a better prospect, got water n’shit…”

Adal and Dalton passed by, sharing a nod with her. Their numbers had risen slowly over the last year, more escapees from the Legion, or tribals driven from their lands. A handful had been seeking to start anew away from the some past they’d prefer not to share, and a couple had even blown in as traders gone astray, chancing the road Adal had cut to the Divide.

“Long as they ain’t making trouble,” she said, watching a red-shirted man closely. Dalton led her into one of the homes, and gestured for her to have a seat. She sprawled on the couch and looked around, curious. Tidy little thing, with a counter in the front; might have been a store once. “Cushy. This your place, now?”

“Yes. It’s cleaned up well, hasn’t it?” He sat in a chair next to her. It creaked, stuffing leaking from the arm, but he was smiling. “It’s good to have more people, especially like minded ones. But it’s putting a strain on our stores. We’re using them up faster than we can salvage them. People are getting hungry.”

“I suppose they would. Not got any crops growing yet?” He shook his head. “Well… there’s only so much I can carry. Might be time to get the caravans involved.”

“So soon.” He frowned, rubbing at his beard. “Our isolation keeps us safe. I already don’t like that there’s rumors about us. If we start getting on the trade routes, that’ll get worse fast.”

“Any of our people willing to make the run, keep quiet?” She played with loose threads on the arm of the couch. “You said we had traders get stranded.”

“Old Lowe and his lady?” Dalton made a wry face. “He slaughtered his brahmin to give us meat, I wouldn’t ask him to make that trek on foot. He’d never survive. Might ask him for names, reliable sources… I’d rather we weren’t known.”

“I know. It’s a risk, getting caravans out here, but we’ll have to take it,” she said. “I saw Maddie, coming in. She’s pretty far along.”

“Yes. Divide’s going to see its first birth since before the War.” His face lit up, and she couldn’t help but share his smile.

“She’s not with anyone, though?” Adal asked.

“She thinks she was pregnant back when she left the Legion,” he said, sobering. Adal looked away, understanding. “But we’ll welcome the child all the same. And… we’ll need more foods, medicines, and in better quality if we’re going to be having children here.”

“I’ll look into it.” She chewed a hangnail on her thumb, then nodded. “Maybe a small outfit, not one of the big trader houses that want a finger in everything.”

“That’s fair.” He smiled again, a little more gently. “You look good. Healthy.”

“Thanks,” she said, examining the far wall rather than look at him. A hand crept to the inside of her arm, rubbing the bandanna tied over it, a reminder. “Been makin’ some efforts.” He hadn’t seen her shakes and outbursts. Hadn’t seen her swallow her pride, going back to the Followers. Couldn’t see how the lows gnawed at her, made her nearly weep for just one more bright fierce shot of Psycho.

She shook herself, forcing down the ache. “Saw the flag you guys raised, out in the square.”

“That,” he chuckled. “Dana found it in one of the military complexes. Said we’re more America now than most places in the wastes.”

She quirked an eyebrow. “Really?”

“’"Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses…’ No?” Dalton said. “’And her name, Mother of Exiles…’”

Adal scratched the back of her neck, an excuse to look down. “I just found the place. You guys are doing all the work.”

“We wouldn’t have been able to without you,” he said, and leaned forward to take her hand. “We could use your help here, too. If you stayed longer…”

She squeezed his hand, then pulled away. “Divide’s not my home. Ain’t how it works, with me stuck in one spot.”

“You know more than any of us about surviving somewhere this harsh,” he said.

“Some,” she admitted. “I’ll teach what I can. But I’m no mender, or forager. Better at shooting things.”

“Says the woman without a gun,” he said, trying to smile.

She bared her teeth, making him lean away. She managed to swallow back her response. “It’s complicated.”

“So explain.” Dalton spread his hands, inviting. “You’ve had your pain. I can see that. We all have, and this place has given us a chance to begin again. You don’t have to carry yours forever, Adal.”

“Yeah? Too bad it’s not yours to know. And not mine to lay down.” She stood. “Don’t expect you to understand.” She ignored the hurt look on his face. “I need to be in Klamath by the end of the week. I’ll talk to this Lowe and put out feelers with the caravans as I go.”

“Adal.” She spun, throwing his hand off her shoulder. “You realize I might understand? Whatever happened to you involved the Legion, as it did for many of us here. We can—”

“No you fucking _can’t.”_ She slammed a hand against his chest, sending him stumbling back. “Don’t you even think whatever you been through is the same as mine. Don’t you dare. Don’t you fucking _dare.”_

Her face was inches from his, and she could feel the blood throbbing in her ears, the edges of her vision going dark. He stared back, eyes wide, but not flinching. “Not saying it’s the same,” he said, far too low and patient to mean it. “I’m saying we can understand. _I_ can understand. Try to help you.”

“What goddamn help could you hope to give?” He caught her arms as she tried to strike him again. She snarled, fisting her hands in his shirt and throwing him down. He stared up at her, not trying to stand. “Look at you, coward.” He was defenseless, and she took a step closer. Pound him to paste on the concrete floor, see how fucking nosy he could be then…

“Adal, you see your family cut down for no reason but spite, you don’t fear much anymore,” Dalton stood, slowly. “But you are dangerous. Whatever happens to the Divide, you are going to be the end of it. Either you, our lifeline, gets cut loose, or you snap and drive us all out yourself.” He leaned close again, and there was fury in him. “One way or another, I’m not going to let you.”

She bared her teeth, grimaced. Adal growled as she turned away, the sound scaling up into a wordless scream. She slammed a fist into the wall as she left, splitting her knuckles and leaving a smear of blood.


	4. Chapter 4

It was gruesome to do, but the soldier’s armor above the High Road was in much better shape than her own. Adal tried to be careful as she peeled it off the dried-out corpse, wincing as the skeleton pulled apart. “He might have,” she said to ED-E. “He tried—Damn it.” She carefully shook the finger bones out of the glove. “One of those things, huh? Don’t realize how wrong you were until years after.”

She held up a broken plate. ED-E beeped as he carefully fused it back together. “Well, you get off Psycho, the effects don’t always go away. Still get _moments_ , I get pushed too far.” She sat cross-legged and laid the plate on the floor, with the adjacent ones. ED-E whirred at her, and she took a long moment before replying. “Guess I wanted to forget,” she said, poking a finger through a hole in the Ranger’s coat. “Left behind a lot of things. Thought if I could kill the memory too, maybe drown it…”

The eyebot was quiet for a while, as she worked to clean out the armor. He beeped softly, hesitant, and she tried to force a smile. “No. I ain’t up to it, but thanks. Over a decade, still hurts like yesterday.” She shrugged, looking through the lenses of the gas mask. “Maybe later.”

He chimed again, more brightly. “Yeah, sure. So, I found a caravan group willing to make the trip and keep their mouths shut, right…”  
—  
 _2272_  
“Look at you, you little chub!” Adal held the boy up, and he shrieked laughter as she turned him this way and that, holding him upside down as he kicked. “Maddie, what are you _feeding_ this beast?”

“Same as everyone,” she said. She held out her hands, and Adal passed him over, still babbling excitedly. “Won’t eat his green things, though.”

“They never do, at that age,” she said, and leaned close to him with a hand near her mouth. “Good for you, boyo, they taste terrible.” He giggled.

They nodded to each other, and Adal continued further into town. There was smothered laughter behind her, and she held back a grin, trying to walk normally. A few whispers nearer by tipped her off, and she waited until there was a tug on her pack before spinning around, growling. The child screamed, throwing the brahmin tail on a string into the air as she picked him up and stuffed him under her arm. “What’s this?” she shouted, seeing the rest of them scatter, laughing. “What’s this?” She scooped up the tail, waving it madly. “A switch to tan your hides with?”

“No, no!” Three more children rushed out of the alleys, and the boy she held wiggled loose. A girl pushed her way to the front, some nine years old. “Did you bring us anything?”

“Oh, that’s some hello,” Adal said, but pulled a box of candy out of her pocket. They passed it around. “How’s the shooting going, Violet?”

“Um.” She chewed a gumdrop half to death before answering. “Dalton says we shouldn’t. Even if there’s a grownup to watch us.”

“Why?” she asked. “Wait. What did you do…?”

 _”I_ didn’t, it was Charlie!” she said, pointing. “He shot Mr. Wyatt in the leg!”

“I didn’t! It just missed!”

“He was still bleeding—”

“No—hey, hey, settle down.” Adal stepped between them, holding out her hands. “Come on. I taught you better, all of you. You don’t point a gun at a thing—”

“Unless you want it dead,” Violet finished. “It was an accident.”

“I bet. None of you are even going to _think_ of taking aim ‘less you know what’s downrange now, right?” she asked. All of their heads bobbed. She smiled. “Then prove it.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

They cheered and stampeded to the edge of town, to the makeshift shooting gallery. Violet hung back, walking with her. “We can’t stay out too late. There’s monsters at night.”

“What kinda monsters?” she asked, checking over her pistol.

“The ones that live underground,” she said. “The diggers.”

“Mole rats, yeah,” she said. “I’ve seen a few around, but they ain’t dangerous if you’re prepared.”

“But it _wasn’t_ a mole rat! I _know_ what those look like!” she said. “Grownups never listen. It was dark out, and so was it. It was bigger than a mole rat, but skinnier, and it had big long claws and spikes and these huge glowing eyes! I shot it but it ran away, off into the ruined buildings. I went and looked when it was light, and the dirt was all stirred up and soft, like it was digging.”

“Huh. Doesn’t sound like anything I’ve ever seen,” Adal said. “You said it was dark. Are you sure you remember right?”

 _”Yes!”_ she wailed. “Everyone says it was my _imagination_ but it _wasn’t!”_

“Well, I’ve seen some crazy things on the road,” she admitted. “Maybe some kind of, I dunno, tunneling Deathclaw. The adults know, then?”

“They don’t believe me,” she said, sulking.

Adal gave her a sideways hug. “Tell you what, Vi. I’m staying the night this time. We can sit up together and keep an eye out.”

“I guess,” she said. “I haven’t seen it since. Maybe I scared it off?”

“Maybe, great hunter,” she said. “Lotta animals are pretty scared of people. Could be it won’t show up again.”

“Hope so,” she said, then quieter, “it was scary.”

“Sounds like,” Adal said. She made sure the safety was on, then passed her the pistol, butt-first. “You can go first and brush up, in case it comes back.”

She watched over them, not hesitating to smack heads when they got careless. The older boy, Charlie, kept missing his shots, jumpy and jittery, less than half the cans going down on his turns. The other boy rolled his eyes as he waited. “You’re going to shoot someone again!”

“You can stop that right now.” He ducked her hand, and she turned to Charlie. “Scared?”

“No,” he said, mulish. “I’m just bad.”

“S’okay if you’re scared,” she said, leaning on the wall that marked the start of the range. “There’s no one down there to hit. No one’s rushing you,” this with a pointed look at the other boy, who stuck out his tongue. She took the pistol, slotting in a fresh clip. “You’re doing everything right, just hasty. Breathe into it. Take your time to line it up.”

He gave her a doubtful look. Adal tapped him on the arm, raising his elbow, and she nudged his feet into a better stance. “Front sight, not the can,” she said. “Breathe out, empty lungs. Fire.”

Missed. “Move on. Front sight.” He took aim at the next. Hit. “Straight arm. Front sight. Breathe out.” The third. Fourth. He looked up and smiled, and she slapped him on the back. “That’s how it’s done, Ches!”

“Charlie.”

“What?”

“That’s not my name. You called me Ches.”

Adal looked down at the four of them, who stared back, curious. She had to blink a few times, shaking her head a little. “No, I didn’t. You need to clean your ears more, Charlie,” she said, giving one a tug. “That’s enough for tonight, you used up all my ammo. Run home.”

A little chorus of ‘awww’ followed them away. Violet hung back again, and Adal raised an eyebrow. “I’ll be by, if you want to watch for your digging beastie tonight.”

“You’re a liar,” she said, a child’s frankness. “And not a very good one.”

She made a face, wry. “No. That I’m not.”

She headed back towards town, and Violet fell in beside her. “Who’s Ches?”

Adal looked at her, and the girl raised her chin, defiant. She sighed. “Boy I taught to shoot once,” she said.

“Was he any good?” she asked.

“Oh, a natural,” she said. “Woulda out-shot me once he was big enough to hold a real gun.”

Violet frowned. “What do you mean, ‘would have’?”

“I…” Adal shook her head. “Look, you’re too sharp by half, kid,” she said, and ruffled her hair. “Never you mind. I gotta go talk to Dalton about boring grownup things.”

Violet trotted ahead to catch up with the rest of the children, her expression still suspicious. Adal stood where she was. She stared at the dirt a moment, unseeing, before taking a deep breath and heading back into town.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Referenced noncon in this section

“One just like this.”

Adal paused as she searched the marked men camp, nudging a rifle with her toe. ED-E drifted closer for a look. “I think it’s—yeah.” She picked up the brush gun, turning it over for a better look. “Same model.” The stock was gouged and worn, and if she shut her eyes, it almost felt like the carvings of a Walker weapon. “How about that,” she said, softly.

The eyebot blipped and beeped at her, and she rolled her eyes behind her new mask. “Maybe.” He beeped again. “No, I do not like bein’ shot, thanks, and yes, you got a point.” She hung it off her thumb by the strap, then slowly hooked it over her shoulder. “There. No more charging up to shotgun range. Happy?”

He bumped into her shoulder, warbling. “Smartass.” She bumped him back. “Good thing you’re cute.”

The two of them crept along the road. She knew this stretch, had walked it more times than she could count, and felt her shoulders tense at every step. The weight of the rifle was familiar, the way it bumped into her hip. It was an even older memory, and she stopped and shook her head, pulling off the gasmask. She rubbed at her face. She was _here_ she was _now_ , and the two conflicting thoughts could go fuck off. “I’m fine, ED-E,” she said, gently pushing him out of the way. “I been kind of a mess for a while, shouldn’t trip me up now.” Adal sighed as she settled the mask again. “We’re comin’ up on Ashton. Most of us lived there, and… I dunno. Haven’t seen it since before… before.”

He beeped at her, and she nodded, grim. “Yeah.” She had to clear her throat, the Divide dust leaving a foul taste in her mouth. “Don’t think I’ll like it at all.”  
—  
 _2275_  
Adal held up a thumb to the tower, trying to gauge its height as she walked. Thing was lit up like a beacon, visible even from the Long 15 at night. Maybe she’d have to get up the caps to see the Strip someday, if it was as great as everyone said. She snorted and dropped her hand. They also said it had _standards_. She doubted they’d let the likes of her in, a wrung-out, weatherbeaten courier whose caps had a tendency to vanish. Not so many chems, lately. Caravans were getting tetchy about going to the Divide and keeping quiet, and buying them off left her pretty dry.

She waved her papers at the guard at the Mojave Outpost gate, and he nodded and let her through. The outpost was quiet at this time of night, and inside the command building was silent save the hum of the fluorescent lights. The man behind the desk didn’t even look away from his paperwork. “Caravan, citizen, pilgrim, or...?”

“Courier,” she said. He didn’t raise his head as she handed him a paper, scribbling a signature at the bottom without bothering to read it. “Captain, huh? Good on you, Knight.”

“Sorry?” He looked up, dark circles under his eyes.

Adal tugged her shirt collar, and nodded at the pip on his. “Your promotion. They finally requisition a bigger shovel for your papers?”

“Funny,” he said, without a trace of humor. “Are you here to banter, or do you actually have the radio gear they were sending?”

“Yup.” She flipped her pack open, wiggling a box out of it. Knight set it beside him and nodded slightly, then went back to his reading. She leaned on the desk. “So what’s wrong?”

He looked up, irritated. “You’re kidding.”

Adal shrugged, keeping her face blank and curious. Knight sighed, resting his elbow on the desk and rubbing his forehead. “Scouting parties aren’t coming back from across the river. Brotherhood keep raiding our outposts. They can’t keep the dam functional for more than an hour. Troops are jumping ship to go gambling. In short, what _isn’t_ going wrong?” He picked up his pen. “But you didn’t hear it from me.”

“Right. Rumors are all over the place,” she said, nodding to him. “Don’t work yourself to death, now, cap’n.”

“We have some empty racks if you need to spend the night,” he said, knocking a stack of papers into a neater pile. “Consider it part of your pay.”

The barracks sounded livelier as she pushed open the door, low voices filling the air. Some were troopers, some were traders, but all of them gave her a nervous look before resuming their conversations. She found a spot at the bar, pretending not to eavesdrop, the tension in the room making the hairs on her neck stand up. A trooper beside her was whispering about crosses to her partner. On her other side, a man with the trail-dusted look of a caravan driver was downing another shot, mumbling something to himself. Adal elbowed him. “S’your deal?”

He wobbled on his stool as he looked over, eyes bloodshot. “Like brahmin.” He grabbed the sleeve of her shirt, hanging off of her. “Couldn’t tellem no, n’their turf, alla guns. Had to…drive ‘em. Sm’v’m didn’t…”

“Warned you, Stanley. Yer cut off.” The bartender grabbed the bottle of whiskey away from him. The drunk protested, still leaning on her. “No accostin’ the other patrons. Get.”

Adal gave him a shove and watched him stumble off, frowning. “Yer the courier they sent for?” There was a clunk, and she turned to see the burly tender put the half-empty bottle in front of her. “It’s paid, but he won’t need it. All yours.”

“Kind of you,” she said, taking it willingly. “The hell was he talkin’ about?”

He scratched at his beard. “Nothin’ but bad news blowing in from the east.” He shook his head and mopped up the spot where the drunk had sat. “Fella claims a slaver group had him haul a bunch of folks across half of Arizona to be sold like livestock. Courtesy of some army out there.” He nodded to the wall behind him, a dirty, ragged flag tacked up on it. “Couple rangers brought that in as a trophy. Some kinda mutant brahmin, you reckon?”

She didn’t reply, staring at it, and he took it as permission to go on. “There’s a’ready this whole mess with the Brotherhood at that power station, o’course, that’ll boil over any day now. Now the army’s gettin’ worried about these Legion freaks over the river. Only getting the odd reports, but that only means they’re keeping ‘em from coming in.”

“Legion,” she said, mouth dry. One hand tightened on the edge of the bar, the other on the bottle.

“That’s the way I hear it. Bunch of tribals banded up and marching under that flag, is my understanding,” he said, cleaning up a line of glasses. “Vicious folk. Cruel. Heard tell they captured a ranger a few years back, cut up his hands and feet just for goddamn fun…”

She felt like the world had dropped out from under her. “Yeah. They would’ve,” she said, somewhere distant. She raised the bottle reflexively, not feeling the liquor burn its way down. “You don’t fuck with the Legion.”

“Look, ma’am, it’s bad news, I know, but Moore and her troops will see it through.” He smiled at her before moving along to a trooper waving for him. “A little faith.”

She felt like she was standing on pins and needles, digging into her feet, sending jolts up her spine. She shifted restlessly, heart hammering. No sleep tonight. Safer not to. She couldn’t take her eyes off the flag, finally hiding her head in her arms to stop staring. With her eyes shut, she could see it snapping in the breeze, hanging from…

Adal shied away from a touch on her shoulder, nearly falling off her stool. The trooper next to her still had her hand out, uncertain. “You alright, ma’am? You were crying.”

“No. M’fine,” she slurred. Adal blinked at the bar. Most of the people had left, and there were empty bottles in front of her. “S…Wh’time is it?”

“Coming up one in the morning,” the trooper said. “Do you need help or something?”

“No.” She pushed herself up. “Just gotta…bed. Sleep.” She stumbled away from the bar, tripping on her own feet. Someone laughed and said something about barracks, and there were hands on her, pulling at her arm. She thrashed, balance gone, a punch going wide. She tried to focus on them, people in brown standing over her. Up up she had to get UP but they were grabbing her, dragged away to—

She couldn’t breathe, sucking air in loud heaves. She felt her nails sink into flesh, a wild swing connecting with something solid. A jerk, shock as her head lashed to the side. The pain brought everything into sharp focus. She was surrounded, strangers around her shouting, threatening.

_Smoke and blood, flies already at the fallen, sobs of fear from the living Walker. The ones that look at her are broken, or hollow, or horrified._

Her lips peel back over her teeth. One of them takes a fistful of her shirt, and she lunges.

_Caesar’s Legion tolerates no disobedience; not from its soldiers, its slaves, or its women._

There is blood in her mouth, and she spits, throws herself at them again. “ _COWARDS!_ ”

_We achieve peace through this order._

Not this time. She screams fury, weight bearing her down.

_I am loath to crucify a woman, but she barely seems one. Make an example of her first._

“No—” an impact on her gut, winding her “…help.” She is being carried, lifted up, and can’t fight hard enough. “Walker, please—” they almost drop her as she screams in fear. “ _HELP ME!_ ”

She landed hard, somewhere cold. Adal pushed herself away from the sound of people, of metal. She hid her head under her arms, curling up tight, safe, tears and blood on her face cooling, chilling her. Every fiber of her hurt, muscle and bone singing with strain.

 _Ches staring at her, terrified, not understanding, but holding Alam so he looked away_ —no, that was old memory, or hadn’t happened, but she was standing and watching it, could look over and see herself— _No_. She dragged her nails down her face, deliberate pain to make herself wake up. She forced her eyes open. She was in a single dark room with a bed, bars where the front wall should be.

Safe for now. No one to get hurt, and no one to hurt her. She curled up tighter, biting her tongue to stop from sobbing.

The Legion were coming.

And she wouldn’t get away this time.


	6. Chapter 6

Both of them were watching the ruins more closely now. It wasn’t just marked men and Deathclaws hunting them anymore. “Creepy bastard,” Adal said, and ED-E beeped agreement. She’d only caught a glimpse of him, a dark figure in one of the abandoned buildings. Whatever his game, he didn’t want her dead. Not yet. Didn’t make it any better to know he was stalking her. “Got no right to be here.”

Ashton had sunken into a canyon, buildings toppled as though a careless giant had swept them aside. It made the landscape harder to recognize, streets gone, landmarks obliterated. “Careless,” she muttered. “Catch him careless, send him runnin’ from my town…”

ED-E waited until they passed under the cover of a fallen roof before whirring, a little timid. “Nah, m’sorry. This place… Fucked up. This whole thing, then’n now.” She sighed. “Tell me more about Whitley, take my mind off it. I like him.” He beeped, a little sad. “Oh. Eh, sorry. Thought you might have more records.” She hunkered down in the shadows, waiting for a marked man to turn away. He scanned the ruins above them, then shouldered his rifle and walked on. Adal sat back, waiting to see if more would show. She fussed with the strap of the rifle. “Then… Ain’t a much happier story from there, but… can I keep goin’?”

He warbled, reassuring, and she patted him just above the grille. “Thanks.” She had to swallow hard before finding her voice. “So, once I got out of there, I kept off the chems—too expensive—but just crawled down a bottle, right…”  
—  
 _2276_  
In the morning light, she could see people swarming through the Divide, brown uniforms almost outnumbering the mismatched salvage of the settlers. Two figures were standing stationary on the road into Hopeville, a soldier and…hell…Dalton, with his arms folded. Adal took a last mouthful of scotch before hiding the bottle deep in her satchel. “The fuck’s going on?”

The trooper nodded to her. “Ma’am, Ranger Pineda’s set up in the old missile base, asked to speak with you. I’ll take you there.”

“Know where it is,” she muttered. She didn’t look beside her. “Dalton.”

“Adal.” He kept his voice low. There was no smile now, that harsh gauntness taking over his expression. “You’re drunk. Again.”

“’Least s’only liquor,” she said. “What happened?”

“Those caravans you said would keep quiet,” he said. “They said they’d turn a better profit trading our machines and weapons intact, not piecemeal. Lot easier to track them like that.”

“I was paying ‘em not to.”

“Not enough,” he said. “Cost of chems cutting into your bribes?”

“That ain’t—”

“Certainly what it looks like to me,” he said. She kept her eyes fixed on the trooper’s back. “Someone talked. The NCR caught wind of us. We’re being annexed.”

She said nothing, a cold weight in her gut. He went on, “They’ve arrested Reyes and his people, as escaped criminals. Threatened to confiscate our weapons, and are harassing the guards we keep on the armory, trying to justify taking it over.” A knot of soldiers gave him a look as they passed, and he stared them down. “Elaine disappeared the first night—either they took her as a political mark, or she ran. Either way, we lost our most skilled doctor, and have to rely on our…guests. No accident they’ve claimed every building with an auto-doc.” They reached the command building, encircled by NCR people who eyed them suspiciously. “I’ve spent every night of the last two weeks keeping our people from taking up arms and driving them out.”

“So let ‘em,” she growled. “I’ll be right there with ‘em, if that’s what it takes.”

He scoffed. “Always the short-term, isn’t it? What happens after? Hm? They come back with a larger force, better armed, and crush us completely. We don’t stand a chance.”

It was bustling inside, radios squawking and troopers poring over maps and papers. Their guide led them back towards the offices, gesturing for them to wait outside. She stood across the hall from Dalton, staring at her boots. “We could do it,” she said, low. “We got weapons we haven’t even tried yet, in the silos, sentries, turrets. Military gear. Show ‘em we got more fight than they can handle.”

“No. Adal, you reckless—” He took a breath, composing himself. “We were doing _well_ , Adal,” he said, and she shut her eyes at the pain in his voice. “We were growing. Thriving. All of us came here because we didn’t want to be _ruled_ , and instead…”

The door opened, and she stepped through to avoid his gaze. “Ah, the mysterious courier!” She looked up. The coat and armor made the stranger seem even bigger than he was, already tall enough to make her crane uncomfortably. The Ranger held out a hand, smiling. His helmet rested on the desk before him. “Pleasure to meet you at last, ma’am. Ranger Pineda, I’m taking charge of the situation here.”

She stared at him. He held his expression, until she took his hand, squeezing just as hard as he did. “You expecting a fight?”

“Right now, or in a general sense?” he asked, sitting. There was still that vaguely amiable look on his face, a little laugh in his voice.

“NCR wouldn’t have sent a vet for a trader’s issue,” she said, groping behind her for a chair. Dalton pushed one closer before she could embarrass herself. “Your people either are here for us, or there’s somethin’ else coming. Something big.”

Dalton had sat next to her, shaking his head and trying to catch her eye. The ranger laughed, a cheery, rolling rumble. “Looking for retirement prospects,” he said lightly. “Nice little town you have set up here.” His smile faded a little, searching her face. “Set on a road cutting directly into the Mojave—or Legion territory, if you’re adventurous. My superiors and I find that very interesting.”

“I’m a courier,” she said, leaning back and putting a foot on the front of the desk. “Need paths where others won’t go.”

He nodded, saying nothing. The silence grew uncomfortable. “She’s the only reason this place exists,” Dalton said. She raised an eyebrow at him. “And she, like everyone here, has no Legion sympathies.” The Ranger nodded again, encouraging. “Most of us who came from the east were slaves. Those that weren’t willingly left behind—”

Adal let her foot drop, her boot making a loud slap on the floor tile. “I see what this is,” she said. “We got no plans for the Legion to even find us. Couple deserters found their way here, yeah, but they keep their mouths shut. They start spouting off ‘ave’ and most of us’d shoot them dead on the spot.”

“That’s very good to hear, ma’am.” Pineda smiled politely, waited.

She sat back, folding her hands behind her head. They stared each other in the eye, her scowling, him smiling. It grew wider, and he started to chuckle. “Mr. Dalton, I’m sure you have people wanting to speak to you outside. Thank you for your time.”

“I need to speak with Adal…”

“Lieutenant Vang will see you out.”

Dalton stood slowly, seeming to not want to interrupt the stalemate. The Ranger gave a little nod to the trooper by the door, and he snuck off as well. When the door closed behind him, Adal said, “That’s a good trick, to keep people talking. Too bad I seen it before. What’re you looking to hear me say?”

The Ranger shook his head, still grinning. “Well, quite frankly, ma’am, the locals here are very resistant to our presence. You’re a respected member of this community, and a citizen of the NCR who… You are a citizen, yes?”

“Well…” she looked at the ceiling, thinking. “Wasn’t born there. Would there have been paperwork?”

“Plenty,” he said.

“Then no.”

“Well,” he said, wryly, “then you are a person with a noticeable record in the NCR that we could see expunged, for a bit of good publicity here. I had our clerks do a bit of digging. You _do_ realize that public intoxication, open carry of weapons, and assault on military personnel are criminal offenses?” 

“No one mentioned,” she said, all innocence.

“Of course not.” He leaned closer, and she resisted the urge to do the same. “Understand what you hear next is not intended to leave this room. Caesar’s Legion has cut nearly every supply route from California to the Mojave, save for the Long 15. We have a war to fight, and wars are won and lost on supply lines. We need Vegas. We need that Dam. And we need the Divide to keep troops and goods flowing to it. Do you understand?”

“Find another way,” she said, cold. “Divide’s independent.”

“Well… About what I expected for a city of rebels and runaways, and it’s only right that you take pride in it,” he said, conceding with a nod. “But there is no other route. Ma’am, if we lose this front, the Legion keeps rolling west, and starts massacring defenseless civilians. Would you rest at night, with that on your conscience?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know ‘em.”

“And the people here?” The smiles were gone, his face sober. He didn’t blink, something steely in his eyes. “Don’t think the Legion hasn’t noticed this place. We’ve seen signs of their scouts, patrols. You have people in your city we can’t trust, knowing they came from the east, and how deep the hooks of their spy network can go. It rests on the people here to be vigilant, and trust the NCR to keep them safe. And we need the Divide’s leaders to enforce it.”

“We don’t work like that. And they respect Dalton more’n me,” she said. “I’m just a whiskey-soaked drifter to ‘em, these days. Go through him.”

“Mr. Dalton is not above suspicion,” he said.

Adal nearly laughed, but Pineda’s expression didn’t change. “It must hurt to consider,” he said, softly. “But no one can be trusted. Legion likes to use deep cover agents, Ms. Walker. He is a well-spoken, educated man with no verifiable past, except that he once lived in Caesar’s lands. Maybe too well-spoken, for someone who claims to have been a farmer in a nowhere Arizona town. And you heard how defensive he got, about no one here answering to the Legion.” The Ranger sat back again. “But I have no proof either way. If I did…?”

“We backbite enough already, wouldn’t matter if he was.” She snorted. “’F everyone with a stick up their ass was a Legion agent, you folks woulda lost already.”

Another smile, but this one was humorless, gone in a flash. “I understand some of the children here were once Legion captives.”

Something cold went up her back. Adal shifted, ready to spring. “You be real careful about what you say next, Ranger.”

“If we lose the Divide, what happens to them?” She stood, slowly. He followed, towering over her. “You would condemn them to return to that life?”

_“Get outta my town.”_

“That’s not negotiable.” He folded his arms. “That’s all I’ll say on the matter, courier. But I encourage you to think about it. We don’t want any more civilian casualties, either here or in the NCR. You have the ability—and responsibility—to prevent them.”

“Ain’t whoring myself out to you people,” she said, backing towards the door. “Least when the Legion conquers a town, they got the grace to call it that and not smile like it’s a favor.”

“Never said it was, courier. Not to you.” The Ranger tipped his head, his face back to mild and friendly. “Sleep on it. We can treat your hangover tomorrow, if you like.”

The glass in the door nearly broke as she slammed it.


	7. Chapter 7

“Wound up staying out of it, at first.” Adal’s voice echoed in the tunnel, and she shut up while she climbed. She lifted the grate at the top, poking her head out and scanning the area below. “Bastard out-talked me, but I wasn’t lying, what I said to Dalton.” A couple Deathclaws way down below, but they weren’t about to scale a cliff after them. She clambered into the ruins of the municipal building, turning to watch ED-E follow. “People looked to me to show up and start something, those that didn’t trust Dalton anymore. Oh, no, I didn’t believe a thing that piece’a shit Pineda said about him, but he whispered it to some of the stupider settlers. Rumors got goin’.”

She peered around the building, waiting for another marked man to spring up and try to bite her face off. “Huh,” she said, not quite a laugh. “How it always goes. This Ulysses wants to talk about history repeating? It’s just like when we first saw the Legion, the Walker and I. Me and mine were all for shooting, the rest said we ain’t gonna win if we do.” There was a body by the window, armored and clutching a sniper rifle. “Longer everyone bickered, the more troops they had in town, probably had one of them for every body of ours. And lot of the Divide folk weren’t fighters, not—son of a _bitch_.”

She stared down at him, and ED-E beeped, drifting past her for a look. “Son of a bitch.” Adal knelt down next to the corpse, taking in the armor. She put a hand over her mouth. “No. Just… Damn it. He survived, look at him. Sitting here shooting at ‘em, after the buildings fell.” There was a rusty spot on the wall behind Pineda, and the crater from a high-velocity round. She sat back on her heels. “Well.” The eyebot beeped again, and she shook her head. “No, dunno what I expected. Not to find him.” She stood, going to case the rest of the room, but stealing glances at his corpse. “Kinda wish he was still livin’ so I could rub his face in me running Vegas.”

He warbled at her, a little synthetic sound that managed to have a question in it. “He…” She stopped, feeling under a fallen vending machine for caps. “Well. He’d’a called me all kinds of stupid and say I had no right being in charge of anyone.” She straightened, looking out over the Divide through the broken walls. “He always was sore once we took this place back.”  
—  
 _Early 2277_  
“Aradesh is a loss,” Adal said, passing the bottle to her left. “Legion’s taken the whole area. No one sane’s going near it.” The other Divide folk muttered, a handful of oldsters and people who had built it from the start. They sat on the apartment’s stoop, or on the bumper of a burned out Nuka truck stranded on the road. The evening was tinted the usual Divide red, the constant wind moaning softly between the buildings.

One of them handed her a cigarette. “Bullhead’s gone too, I heard.”

“That’s been dead and gone, man. Who are you getting you news from? Oh, wait.” The others chuckled. Adal took a draw and passed it back. “Not looking good for the Bear, out in the Mojave. They lost a hell of a lot of men, driving the Brotherhood out of that power station, and I heard a rumor the Legion’s set up a freaking fort across the river.” She stared at the Old World flag hanging in the square, and sighed. “All going to hell.”

“Not much better here,” Dana said, a brick house of a woman. “We should get in before they start sweeps.”

“Oh, shit, no. They didn’t really start holding curfew?” Adal said.

“Few weeks ago,” gray-haired Spence said. “Bastards brought in a whole slew of Rangers, just to be riot control. And y’know the real pisser? That 11th Calvary armor my men were restoring? Fuckers took _every single_ set we had, and are wearing it around _our_ city.”

“Those…” He lit a fresh cigarette and handed it to her, shaking his head. She watched the tip glow bright as she sucked it down, and held the breath before letting it out through her nose. “Let ‘em call curfew. They can drag me off this damn bumper,” Adal said.

Young, nervous Wyatt raised a hand. “Might want to rethink that,” he said. “Nell was trying to sit up and watch for one of those digging critters, said something took one of her geckos in the night. Saw her today. They broke her arm taking her in, and locked her up all night.”

“ _What?_ Why didn’t you say?” Dana said.

Wyatt sputtered apologies, and Adal glanced down the road. “Here we go,” she muttered. A disciplined group was marching down the road, all in brown. Sure enough, front and center was a towering figure in a long coat, and her lip curled at the built-up shoulders and heavy respirator. She scowled. Leave it to him to take the best set for himself.

“We should go,” Spence said, starting to rise. The others followed, giving the troops dirty looks and lingering on the stairs.

Adal crossed a leg over the other. “If you’re going in, leave the bottle out here, huh?”

The Divide folk froze. She took another drag on the cigarette, leaning back on the truck. Dana grinned, wolfish, and sat back on the steps. One by one, the others did the same. Adal didn’t turn as the marching feet rounded the vehicle. “Courier. Heard you were in town.”

She waved in Pineda’s general direction, taking another slug of whiskey. “Yep.”

A pause, while he waited for more. “You may not have heard, given how long you spend on the road,” he said, voice muffled, but still faking friendly. “Curfews are running from sundown to sunup. I’ll have to ask you to head indoors.”

“Ask away,” she said, switching legs. “But only if I get to ask why you got the right to scare my folk to hiding every night.”

“Safety,” he said, as though surprised by the question. “We’ve had sure signs of a Legion contingent on the road to the east. We need the time to patrol and assess the area without interference. Not to mention these…nocturnal animals everyone thinks exist.”

“Sure, sure.” She waved the cigarette. “If I wanted smoke blown up my ass, Ranger, I’d have a tube.”

Beside her, Wyatt nearly choked, trying not to laugh. One of the troopers snorted, and Pineda shifted his weight. “Ma’am. We will enforce the curfew, for your own good. Last warning.”

“I’ll go in when I finish my goddamn cigarette, Ranger. You should try one, unwind,” she said, looking over at him. “You been a lot less pleasant lately.”

He nodded, and turned to his men. “Arrest her.”

“No, don’t arrest her,” she said, standing. The settlers followed as one, and the soldiers hesitated. “Gettin’ tired of you throwing your weight around in my home, Pineda.”

“Stand down, courier,” he said, low, all forced joviality gone. “The NCR needs this town, and I am done with your defiance. You people can go, but I will personally ensure that you don’t see the outside of a cell until the next round of bombs fall.”

Adal blew a lungful of smoke at him. “Whatever you say. Lemme finish up.” His face was completely hidden, but she stared him down anyway. She leaned forward and stubbed the cigarette out on the chest of his armor. “There. All done.”

The soldiers behind him went dead still. She heard him take a breath through the mask, pulling himself up tall. Adal grinned, ready to cut him off, and missed the blow that sent her reeling. She spat a bit of tooth, Spence holding her up by the arm. Pineda yanked loose a radio, gesturing to his men. “Bring _all_ of them in. HQ, we’re going full-scale starting tonight. Lethal force is auth—”

He sidestepped, and her swing went wide, hatchet nearly sinking into the soldier behind him. She heard one of the troopers firing, and the Divide folk answering. Pineda’s hand closed on hers, crushing it against the hatchet’s handle. She hauled backwards, screaming starting in the brawl around them, but he didn’t budge. “Didn’t need to come to this,” he said, drawing a monstrous revolver.

“Yeah,” she grunted, trying to twist free. “Fucking did this to yourself.” She leaned back and kicked out. They’d all joked about the armor, as they pieced it back together. Great against anything that wanted to hit you above the belt. Pineda flinched hard enough for her to pull free, and she lunged, burying the hatchet in his leg. “Back!” she shouted. The NCR men had taken the cover of the truck, and she turned to run, waving them back to the buildings. “Back! We know the streets—the alleys. Run!”

They broke for cover, some of them limping. She checked behind her—two were missing, probably dead. “Where now? They’re on us,” Dana said, holding pressure on a bloody arm.

“Armory,” she said, already running. “How’re we for guns?”

“Nothing larger than a .357,” Dana said. “We got our people on the armory, but there’s troopers for blocks around. How’ll we get in?”

A bullet knocked chips from the building beside them. Adal pressed back against the wall and fired, missing the soldier ahead but sending him back to cover. “Fuck.” Her hand wouldn’t close properly on the grip of her pistol. “The front goddamn door. If our folk are any kind of use, they’ll have fallen back into it.”

Spence snapped off a shot, and there was a grunt ahead. “This is it? We’re taking it back?”

“We’re taking it back,” she said. “Break up. They can’t catch all of us. Spread the word.”

She tried to keep to the shadows as she ran, but the soldiers were on alert, forcing her to take a long, winding route to the armory. She charged past a patrol, hatchet lost and pistol useless, crying out as a bullet ripped through her leg. Adal forced herself to run on, feeling blood pooling in her boot. “Fuck, fuck, fuck,” she chanted under her breath, dodging from street to alley and back.

Most of the Divide settlers had already gone in for curfew, and she banged on the door to one of the homes. The door swung loose, unlocked, and she ducked in. She hobbled into the bathroom, prying the top off of a first aid kit. She had to juggle the stimpak left-handed as she stabbed it into her leg, the other still too painful to use. She reached for another, spotting a needle, but came up with a series of tubes bundled together.

Shit.

Adal stared at it a long moment before moving to set it down. No. She’d gone this long without Psycho. It wouldn’t help the pain, just dull it; she didn’t need it. She could hold out. Adal laid it on the sink, digging through the box for another stim. There was Med-X, useful enough, and a raft of surgical tubing, but…

Nothing. She raised her head at the sound of an explosion outside, and gritted her teeth. People needed her. The stimpak had closed the bullet wound, but it was still sore, would slow her down. She looked back at the syringe on the sink.

Maybe… Half a dose. Just half, for the sake of everyone here. She tied off her arm with the tubing, pumping her fist to make the veins stand out. Half, and never again. She could throw the rest away, and never, ever again. It was a harp, familiar pain as the needle bit, and she went by feel, loosing the tubing and pressing down the plunger.

She went gingerly at first, readying herself to stop it. With her heart hammering, she could feel it start to creep into her, fast. The pain went away. She felt the pounding start in her ears, and she was panting to keep up with it. She felt like she was floating, and Adal laughed as elation welled up. The syringe clattered to the ground, empty, and her unable to care. She slammed her fist into her chest, enjoying the visceral _thump_ of the impact, ignoring the pop of tendon in her injured hand. The laughter crawling up from her guts was a horrible braying sound, nothing a human should ever make, and she bit it down, escaping through clenched teeth. She felt light as a feather as she ran for the door, and the world had no bounds on her. People were running out in the street, but she was stronger, faster, and she rammed into an NCR trooper head-on, heedless of the rifle he held.

A brief, mad scramble for the weapon, one that she got up from, but he didn’t. She looked down at herself, bloody but unable to tell whose, too strong, too powerful for it to matter. She felt _good_. She wanted to fuck, she wanted to fight, and by the sounds of battle ahead, her people had gotten the armory open. Adal threw her head back and laughed. “To me!” she shouted. “We don’t want you here, Pineda! We’ll drive the bear home!”

She rode the rush through all of Ashton, throwing aside the rifle when her hand failed to work it, finding an ax to swing in her left. More of the settlers gathered behind her, the NCR soldiers falling back. The lightness, the aggression didn’t start to falter until they reached the High Road, the mob slowing to a halt.

The Road was closed off, cars and rubble piled into a barricade. The top of it bristled with Rangers and soldiers, and they drew back against the walls of the buildings as high-powered rounds struck the pavement around them. A hand clamped down on Adal’s shoulder, and she jerked away, teeth bared.

“What have you _done?”_ Dalton asked, his voice soft, horrified.

“What you’re too coward to,” she said. “This is _our_ city, Dalton, and if you ain’t gonna fight for it, _I_ will.”

“What—you—” He stepped back, shaking is head. “Good God, did you even see the bodies in the streets? _Our_ people, that you led to—”

“You lost your chance,” she said, and turned to the street. “Divide!” she shouted, voice echoing off the buildings. “You know me. You know I walked long, hard roads.”

She saw them peering from cover in the growing dark, watching her, listening. “The one that led me here started with men who would take what was ours. Our leaders thought it made us wise, to Walk on, to wash our hands of it,” she said, looking at Dalton, “when people like me knew better. And I let ‘em call me wrong, fool that I was. All it did was put the Legion at our backs, left us weak to them. Not again! Not here, not again.”

A squeal of feedback echoed off the streets. “Citizens of the Divide.” Her lip curled at Pineda’s voice, amplified by a bullhorn. “You have one chance to disarm and disband, and this is it. Turn in the courier and her lieutenants, and we will not be forced to open fire.”

Adal leaned out from behind the wall long enough to hold up her middle finger at him, and felt the breeze from a bullet as it passed. “Divide!” she called again. “This city is _ours!_ We been given a chance to begin again, and to hell with all of us if we give that up without a fucking fight!”

There was a cheer from the crowd. Pineda was speaking again, but she turned her back to it, facing Dalton. He shook his head at her, face fallen. “You said yourself, when we first met. Better dead, than under a lash.”

“There was nothing to lose then,” he said, but by the tone of his voice he knew he had lost. “The Divide and everything with it…”

“You done fuckall to earn this place as yours. This is _my_ town, _my_ home. You ain’t gonna fight with us, walk back to the Legion.”

“…snipers up top, front rank with flash-bangs—” the bullhorn cut off, and she saw Pineda step down.

“Divide!” She raised the ax over her head. “On me!”

The high was there, with her people at her back, and fear in the faces of the soldiers.

She wouldn’t fold, not this time; wouldn’t give in and let them make her weak.

 _Not this time_.


	8. Chapter 8

_”Another history... gone, carried by me alone.”_

Adal tossed the holotape aside, the clatter echoing in the ruined apartment. ED-E was silent, but drifted a little higher across the fire from her, waiting. “So… Former tribal, a Legion conscript. One of their scouts, who came here, and thought the Divide might be somewhere to start new. Then I brought that package. Nearly died here, and thought I did too,” she said, tapping her fingers on her leg as she put it all together. “Went back to Caesar. Stirred up the White Legs, riled the Think Tank, sent Elijah to Sierra Madre.” She shifted her weight on the rotten mattress, looking down the dark hallway at a faint scraping sound. She waited for something to show, but was met with stillness. “Been fucking hunting me for years,” she said, trying to ignore how the thought made her skin crawl. “All because of that package, and what I did here.”

ED-E beeped, comforting. She hook her head. “No. I should have.” He beeped again, insistently. “Goddamn it ED-E, _yes_ I should have known. Or guessed. We tried to keep the NCR in the dark—we intercepted their reports, altered ‘em, sabotaged their messengers. I stayed on the road to run interference, make it look like nothing had happened. But of-fucking-course something got through.”

He tried to chime in again, and she cut him off. “It doesn’t matter! Doesn’t fucking matter, if they were trying to kill us off or not, I should have… should’ve figured the Bear would try and trip us up, that any package I took for them to the Divide wasn’t right.” She rubbed her hands over her face, fisted her fingers in her hair. “ _Goddamn_ it. And I don’t even remember the fucking thing. Too much Psycho. Too much drink, and—It doesn’t _matter!_ ” She was on her feet, and ED-E floated back. “This place… We just stuck our heads in the sand and acted like the war’d leave us be. It _didn’t_. If we let the Bear keep moving troops through, the Legion would’a been crushed at the Dam. Hell, if we had fought with ‘em… we had _nukes._ Fuck if anyone knew it then, but we did, and neither of ‘em would have been able to touch us. And now this son of a bitch is going to use them on my… on Vegas.” She looked down at the eyebot, drifted low against the wall. Adal sat hard, rubbing at her head. “And now I’m shoutin’ at you, too.” She sighed. “M’sorry.”

She didn’t look at him as he recovered, hovering level with her eyes. He beeped, softly, and she turned it over in her head. “I don’t know,” she said at last. “Hard to think I run out of mistakes to make. Couldn’t protect the Walker. Failed the Divide. Now Vegas…” She shook her head, lips pressed thin. “This Ulysses thinks history’s important? Well, mine ain’t too promising.” She looked at the holotape, discarded on the floor. “He’s walked the same roads I have, and come out without a scratch. Crazy, maybe, but that doesn’t seem to be slowin’ him down. Graham’s even wary of this guy. And now he’s sitting in a fucking active silo, waiting for me.”

ED-E had drawn closer, quavering. She gave him a pat on the side. “No. You’re a sweetheart, kid, but I lost this fight as soon as I put a foot on this road, at his call. Can’t fight him. Can’t stop him.”

Adal looked down the hall again, the path ahead dark and forbidding. She shut her eyes, and put her head in her hands. “The hell’s the point?”

He bumped her shoulder. She looked over, wiping at her face. He beeped at her, and she snorted. “Yeah, I guess. Rather die fighting than be Tunneler food.” He went on, and she listened, eyebrow raised. “He seem the type to listen to reason?” ED-E shook himself, playing a snippet of triumphant music, and she couldn’t help but smile. She threw an arm over him, pulling the eyebot into a hug. “You ain’t much for giving up, are you?”

He wiggled free, and she stood. “Well, we got a ways to go, yet. May as well get on with it.”  
—  
 _2277_  
“Adal! Adal Adal Adal!”

She raised her head, blinking muzzily. Violet was charging up to her along the road into Ashton, hopping on one leg to show the holster on her hip. “Look what I got! Mara said I could keep it, since I got it cleaned up so well!”

“Huh?” Adal leaned in for a look. “Oh, yeah. She said you’d moved up to a .357 last time. Good on you. Bit big, though?”

“A little, but I’m practicing,” she said, nearly glowing.

“Yeah. God, you got tall,” she said, ruffling the twelve-year-old’s hair. “Here. Got a present.” She dug in her pocket, and tossed something small and heavy to her. “Standard cylinders in those things wear down too fast. Picked that one up in Primm for you.”

She nearly squealed with delight, and Adal walked deeper into town. A few of the people there nodded to her as they went about their business. No NCR, here, anymore. They kept in Hopeville if they knew what was good for them.

She hiked the pack higher on her shoulder as she went, fishing out a bottle of water. Goddamn Psycho comedown. She felt slow and stupid, and even the sounds of people talking grated on her, made her twitch. She took as many back routes to the far end of Ashton as she could, sticking to alleys and still-abandoned streets. Her skin crawled where the parcel on her back rested, the weight of it making her mutter and swear. The low humps of the silo bunkers came into view, and the thing was intolerable, making her break into a jog.

“Courier!” One of the men on watch raised a hand, a Divide rocket launcher slung over his back. “Good to see you, can—”

Adal bit back the urge to spit at him, to shout, _get out of my way, boy,_ but turned it into a grunt of, “Delivery.” They stepped aside, eyes averted. She winced at the scrape of the bulkhead door on the silo, pushing through before it was fully open.

Wyatt gave her a nervous smile as she dropped her parcel on the front desk, dragged in from a nearby office. “H-hello, courier.”

“Who’s playin’ god right now?” she asked, rubbing at her head. Goddamn, his voice was shrill sometimes…

“Dana has watch,” he said, pointing uncertainly to a room beyond. “Should I…?”

“Why the fuck else would I ask?” Adal said. “NCR sent this on to Pineda. She should see it first. Or Spence, he knows gadgets.”

“Spence is out…” He caught her expression and scooted away, head ducked.

She rested her elbows on the desk, rubbing at her face. “Ugh.” She shifted her weight, muscles twitching on their own, not hearing voices from the back. “Agh!” She threw up her hands and turned to leave. Let them deal with it, she couldn’t even stand still until the chems had worked themselves out. Maybe she had some Buffout back in her apartment, or even enough liquor to sleep it off. Didn’t pay to keep Psycho here, not when there were people so close.

The guards didn’t try to engage her this time, and she didn’t care why. Adal watched the crowd as she reentered the town, people working to move debris out of buildings, or tending the scattered garden plots. Some were just sitting, talking, or moving purposely to somewhere else. She couldn’t name more than a few of them these days, and not many recognized her, going by how few looked up, or waved, or even noticed her passing. It made her uncomfortable, to think she was a stranger here, and she slowed as she went.

Maybe it would be worth it to stay a while. The auto-docs could help with addiction, according to their medics. Pineda’s people were scared of her still, got quiet when they knew she was in town, didn’t cause trouble. The kids looked up to her enough and were growing up fast, probably time she cleaned up her act and made a better example…

She could see Violet down the road, leading in a newcomer, a man in a long coat. He seemed to know where he was going, with the girl skipping ahead and chattering away, proudly holding up the new cylinder for her gun. Adal shook her head and turned away, headed west. Maybe her next trip. She’d been born on the trail, and leaving it… Her tribe would have disowned her for even considering settling. It wasn’t the way of the Walker, turning into some sentimental townie with their feet nailed down, crippled by it.

But the Walker were dead. No one on the roads, keeping time with a song. Their Crossroads was probably dead and bare, no one left to tend it. All that was left was her, and all her paths came back to _this_ town, instead.

So what did that make her?

She patted in her pack for a bottle of something, anything not water, to chase away the thought and the tight spot it put in her chest. She could take a week or two to chew it over. Adal nodded to herself. Put her affairs in order with the courier offices, maybe, or else see what good she could do for the Divide on the road. Go back to the Followers and eat Fixer until she had to hold the ground to keep from spinning. See if she could pull it off this time, stay clean, even if she didn’t settle down here.

Adal cracked open a bottle of scotch, looking up at the horizon. Yeah. One last drink for the road, a toast to a new life. The red dust was still blowing across her path, the wind moaning between buildings. Some ghost town, full of people like her, looking to start over. She smiled to herself. One last Walk, then back here.

Back home.


	9. Chapter 9

The wind had always been strong in the Divide, but it wailed now, forced through valleys and crevices. Adal hunched her shoulders against it, watching the ruins for signs of life. Fear caught at her throat, keeping her from calling out, as though it might have been heard over the howling. The red dust choked her, got in her eyes and made them run. The sky was turned bloody with it, a low, ugly cloud seeming to hang over Ashton.

The Divide was only a wound in the earth now, bleeding red and screaming in pain.

She knelt at the edge of the chasm, clutching at her arms. She was dreaming. She had died. This wasn’t… couldn’t be happening. Adal rubbed at her face, ground at the dust in her eyes, willed the scene to be different when she opened them, knowing it wouldn’t. Her stomach roiled, Fixer and shock making her shudder. A scream tried to rise up from her, but she bit down on it, grit crunching between her teeth. It choked her, seizing in her throat and sending her sobbing and coughing at the dust in the air.

Adal pushed herself up to her feet, the motion sending the horizon spinning. She staggered, holding her knees as she leaned over to vomit. When the heaves ended, she wiped her face and went to the edge of the chasm, feeling for handholds. She had to know. Violet, and the other children. Maddie and her son. Dana and Spence, fuck, even Dalton…

The rock was brittle and crumbling under her hands, shattered by whatever had happened below. She nearly fell, scrabbling at the wall and sending stone rattling into the abyss. It was growing dark, making the next handhold a leap of faith. The wind sent dust hissing past her, stinging on her skin and leaving it raw. She looked down for a better grip, body going rigid.

Three of the creatures stared at her from a ledge, eyes glowing in the dark. More moved below, a roiling mass of dark, pebbled skin. One of them reached up, mouth opened wide in a hiss, needle teeth catching the last of the light. She kicked at the wall, trying to scramble higher. Its claws scraped at the loose rock, and she kicked more of it free at its head, fighting to climb. She didn’t look down even after she had hauled herself over the lip of the canyon, staggering back with a hand on her gun. Adal raked her fingers across her face, through her hair, feeling a clump of it pull free. Radiation sickness, setting in fast, faster than she’d ever seen.

She coughed and spat at the grit in her mouth, eyes still set on the Canyon. She tore them away as she faced west, stumbling as she walked. The cache nearest had RadAway, if she was lucky. Enough to recover, and then she would come back. She would look for them.

Adal wiped the tears running down her face. She would come back. The thought was thin, but she clutched at it, for the comfort it brought. She would brave the wind and creatures to find them, her people sheltered in bunkers, in the hardened silos under the ruins. The folk of the Divide would gather only what they could carry, all the strong, capable people who had rebuilt Ashton. She would lead them away, as she had before, to somewhere safe. She would hold Violet on her hip again and sing Walker jodys until her voice was raw. Home, they would go home, and she would never leave them.

She couldn’t stop the screaming this time, welling up out of her control as she left the Divide behind, lying with every breath.

 _She would come home._  
—  
 _2281_  
Adal leaned on the elevator door. The building was silent, more tomb than missile silo, so quiet even her breath echoed. ED-E pressed against her arm, warm even through the thick fabric of her coat. “This is…” she whispered, mouth dry. “Fuck. I go in there, I die.”

He beeped at her, gentle but grim. “I know. And better that I… goddamn it, ain’t coming back to that again. Rather be dead than see…see something like this again, ED-E.” She laughed, a hard, bitter cough. “Could’ve walked away,” she said. “Any time. Just turned around, never brought you back here.”

Adal stabbed the call button, hearing the mechanisms behind the door grind to life. “Now I gotta set it right. If I can. For all the good it’ll fucking do me.” She rested a hand on his side. “You with me?”

He pressed against her hand, and gave a quick, fierce sound. She smiled. The doors slid open, the elevator beyond dim and forbidding, tinted red from the lenses of her mask. Adal hung the rifle at her shoulder, leaving her hands empty. “Then let’s go.”

The doors opened on a cavernous room. Not a tomb, she thought, stepping into the open. The whole place was built around a pit at the far end, a missile the size of the Lucky 38 locking into position. A temple. An Old World flag was suspended near it, rippling as a hatch in the ceiling opened to the sky. A pair of eyebots zipped past, disappearing by the structure.

Adal glanced at ED-E. “Drama,” she muttered. “Figures.”

He was standing on a platform by the launch mechanism, under the flag. It was worn and tattered, and she scowled. He’d dug _their_ flag out of the ruins, the presumptuous little…

“Your city, Vegas, lies in the other direction, with the rest of its slaves.” Adal looked down. Ulysses still had his back to her, the same flag painted on the back of his coat. He looked over his shoulder before he turned to face her. “Or is it just, you, Courier, without the lights and ghosts?”

Adal stopped at the base of the stairs, leaving him looking down at her. “Judging by your shadow... maybe you can't let your machine go.” She heard ED-E drift lower, hiding behind her shoulder. “Doesn't matter now. Either way, the Divide giants are awakening. The missiles here, on their way home.” Without the radio static, his voice was clearer, the cold in it enough to make her neck prickle. “There is no way to stop them. The Divide is awakening, the package, and the message within, have come full circle. The sequence has begun, just as before. Except this time, the missiles will touch the sky instead of being locked beneath the ground.”

She tipped her head a little as she looked him over, taking advantage of the mask hiding her face. Tall, powerfully built man, dark skinned, hair twisted into a series of cords. The way he dressed and carried himself, the expression over his respirator, every inch of him read as tough, capable, and not given to losing. He also hadn’t dragged himself across miles of hell, would be fresher in a fight, faster and stronger. She couldn’t take him, not head-on.

“You brought the Divide to life, Courier. You walked the road. Brought the Bear, then the Bull, brought me, following your tracks. And when I saw the Divide you made, I saw a second chance, a new way of thinking.” She rolled her eyes a little, waiting for him to finish, keeping her arms at her sides. “My world—no longer the East. Then you brought the West in that package. Destroyed it all. Nearly killed me, flesh and spirit. You destroyed something larger than the Bear, greater than the Bull. And even when you could have turned away, you brought it again, in that machine. You destroyed a nation taking its first breath.” There was the anger, his voice dropping low and vicious. “A place that could have been my _home_.

“Now, I'll destroy yours.”

She stared up at him. _Home_. Hearing it from someone else ought to hurt, make her ache for them and her own pain, grown old and familiar. Instead, she took a breath and let it out, slow. Hearing it just left her tired. Ulysses narrowed his eyes, shifted his weight, tense. Behind her, ED-E beeped almost inaudibly, giving her a nudge.

Adal shrugged. “Alright.”

He blinked, turning to look at her sidelong, suspicious. “You… would _allow_ your world to burn?”

“’Allow?’” She shook her head. “’Allow.’ No. This’s just like everything else I did wrong. Chargin’ in like a dumbass, and ending up over my head. If I had a way to stop this…” She sighed, the mask giving it an obnoxious wheeze. She pulled it off, looking at him directly. “But I don’t. Here I am, where you want me. Rub my face in it some more. Kill me.” She shrugged again. “Don’t much care at this point.”

He stared down at her, perplexed, searching her face for a clue. When he made no move to speak, she scoffed a little. “You won.” Adal turned her back on him. “You won. Hope it was everything you wanted.”

“Courier.” She had only gotten a few steps away, and her feet dragged as she slowed. “Expected more.”

She looked back over her shoulder. ED-E sidled out of her way, leaving Ulysses with his arms folded, disappointment visible above his mask. “From all I have seen of you, heard… Hoped for a warrior. A champion, for Vegas. Not a coward.” He shook his head, regret in his voice. “If you won’t even fight for your city, it deserves what comes.”

 _”Excuse_ me? _Coward?”_ She turned back to face him. “Which one of us is using fucking missiles to blow up half the continent? Huh? After talking at me for hours about the Bear being sick for fighting at a distance? Chewing _me_ out for it?”

He drew back slightly. “You claim the destruction here was an accident. I do not doubt—”

“Shut up, fer fuck’s sake. You talked enough,” she said. He jerked away as though he’d been slapped. “You sent Elijah to the Madre, thinking he’d die?” Ulysses nodded, drew a breath to speak. “He made that place a fortress, for a while. Nearly walked out with weapons that make _this_ place look thin.” He lowered his head, looking at her from under his brows. She stepped towards him. “The White Legs. You set them on Caanan, who raised a hand to no one, gave them weapons, made them more dangerous than any bunch of raiders had a right to be.” She stabbed the gas mask at him, standing at the bottom of the stairs. “Then you left ‘em running free like that when you walked off in a huff.”

“The White Legs—”

“Did I _say_ talk?” He was frowning at her, thunderously, and she bared her teeth. “You got what you wanted out of the Think Tank, left the Big Empty with everything you needed to start the next Great War. _They_ got the idea there’s a whole desert out there for them to play in. You saw that place. You know the hell they’d’ve brought. I been walking around this whole damn desert, cleaning up your _accidents_ , Ulysses. If you’re gonna sit there and be smug, _courier_ , at least know we ain’t so different.”

“No,” he said, anger making his voice a growl, “we are not. But at least I had the strength to fight for my beliefs.”

Adal shook her head. “Doesn’t always need a fight,” she said. “Learned that. Learned too late that going in looking to fight gets you nowhere.” Pineda, who appealed to reason, gave the Divide chances to negotiate. Adal sighed. “Your problem with me is just that, between you and me. Innocent people don’t have to die.”

The briefest flash of hesitation, a glance away. “The flags we walked under must answer, as well,” he said, solemn. “They carry ideas into this world best left in the Old. No future in them. Burn them away. Begin again.”

“Maybe,” she said. “NCR is as likely to hurt its people as help ‘em. House held on too hard to the past. Don’t get me started on the Legion.” He was watching her now, wary, weary. “But House is dead. I’m the nearest thing Vegas has to a leader, now. And I did _this_ , once,” she said, waving a hand behind her, indicating the Divide beyond. “I built a place even you believed in. Believed in so hard, it near killed you to see it fall.”

He narrowed his eyes, but said nothing.

She took a deep breath. “We did begin again. Everyone here, all the Divide. And… I got more second chances than I ever deserved, in this place. I’m done making mistakes, Ulysses.” She looked him in the eye, not letting herself flinch. She thought of Dalton, too scared to act against the NCR if it meant risking the Divide, losing all he’d built. Thought of him staring her down. _Whatever happens to the Divide, you are going to be the end of it…_ “I might’ve done it again, in Vegas. Might’ve. We’ll neither of us find out.”

Adal sighed, letting her shoulders fall. “Now if you ain’t going to shoot me, at least let me go back and die in my home. Give me a chance to say goodbye this time.”

Neither of them looked away. Ulysses was frowning, but there was no anger in it, just consideration. “As much destruction happened here,” he said, slow, “there is a shadow of a nation behind you now, the hope of a people. Yet you came resigned to die.”

She heard the question in it, something suspicious, something… She shook her head. “There’s no way to stop these missiles?” she asked, trying to keep the hope out of her voice.

“Nothing can prevent the launch.” He turned away, just enough to break eye contact. “Convincing me… changes nothing.”

“Didn’t think so. You don’t seem the kind to back down. I figured I was gonna die here.” She held her arms out, let them fall at her sides. “But I convinced you. That’s the only victory I get, I’ll call it good enough for me.”

Ulysses looked back to her, side-on, as though unable to face her directly. “It is… enough.” There was such weight in the words, Adal tipped her head, curious. “You might return to Vegas, courier, and do what good you may… but the Divide still stands against us.”

“Hasn’t stopped me yet,” she said, finding a sardonic little smile somewhere. “The marked men?”

Even with his face covered she saw him return it, a quick, rueful look. “It was always my intention—in case I could not kill you, they would flood this place, cut off your escape.” Adal rolled her eyes. Of course he had. “If we cannot prevent what comes, then let us make our stand here.” He drew a compact, vicious SMG from under his coat, descending the stairs. She shouldered her rifle as he stood beside her. He was still taller, and as she looked up, she was sure he was smiling. “Two Couriers, together, at the Divide.”

Adal smiled back, more faintly, feeling she had missed something. She fit her mask back into place, giving ED-E a little shrug. “Well… not how I expected this to end.”

“Nor I.” She tipped her head at him, but he stared towards the entrance, alert. A boom echoed through the temple, doors thrown wide. “They come for us, East and West alike.”

She let out a breath as she raised her gun, emptying her lungs before taking the first shot. “Haven’t stopped me yet.”


	10. Chapter 10

“Fuck you fuck you fuck you—”

The marked man skidded to a halt at the grenade sailing towards him. Adal dropped into the pit for cover, leg buckling under her and leaving her well below the lip. The bang above made her wince as she pushed back up. Another of the ghouls was reeling from the blast, still standing, and the thundercrack of a heavy rifle put him down. She glanced over to Ulysses, slotting a fresh clip into his weapon. His eyes widened as she sighted on him, dodging down behind a computer bank as she fired on the marked man over his shoulder.

Another bang, a thudding of boots. Adal groaned as she fished for more ammo, feet heavy and shoulder burning.

They fell, one by one, the two of them drawing the ghouls into each other’s line of fire. In the shelter of the control area, she leaned on a panel, listening for more as she caught her breath. Ulysses was further down, back to one of the consoles. There was no gunfire, no shouts, and she peeked over the edge to look across the temple. “We've broken them,” he said, voice echoing in the stillness. “The Bear and the Bull have no more shadows to throw at us.”

“Huh.” She stood, pulling at her sleeve to check the burn on her arm. “Heh. How about that.” Beside her, ED-E chirped excitedly. “Didn’t think—”

There was a mechanical sound from the readied missile, making her jump. Alarm lamps throughout the silo lit up, strobing red and white in the dark. “Safer to move on, courier,” Ulysses said, tucking his gun away and stepping to the upper platform in a single smooth motion. “Let's leave the Divide behind. If we get separated, I'll meet you above Hopeville, near the canyon wreckage.”

“Yeah.” She couldn’t look away from it, from the other missiles lined up, ready to wreak havoc on the world outside. “There’s…”

ED-E was hovering over one of the consoles, beeping brightly. Ulysses gave him a flat, hostile look. Adal glared back through her mask, daring him to speak, as she stepped over to the eyebot. “What’ve you got?” He drifted aside, letting her take a look. She turned her back on Ulysses, examining the display. “Yeah, I see that. Can’t stop ‘em, but…” It took her a moment to make out the map on the screen, targets stretched all across the Long 15. A prompt was still blinking, asking for input. Something cold rested in her guts. “Shit. Shit, I can’t…”

She tapped one of the keys. A marker flickered from its place, reappearing eastward. It took a breathless moment before she realize ED-E was speaking, a recording of his creator’s voice. _“…Eyebot Duraframe universal interface override system. This is Dr. Whitley presiding. Initial tests of the override system are promising. Against unsecured or lightly-encrypted targets, the eyebots have a 98% success rate. More heavily protected systems are still problematic. Military-grade encryption presents a very real possibility of critical overload of key systems. We've stopped tests before any robots were destroyed, but if we don't address the problem our eyebots will fry themselves hacking military networks.”_

“You mean can stop it?” He beeped again, but hesitantly. “You just—No, ED-E, it’ll kill you. No. I can still change where they go.” Her hand hovered over the controls. “Legion deserves to burn. All of...” A warning siren began, sending a shudder up her back.

“Courier…”

“You’re the one who set this up, you bastard, so I sure as hell don’t have time for you _now,”_ she said over her shoulder. Adal didn’t watch Ulysses go, but after a pause, she heard footsteps leading away. She looked back at the screen. It would be simple, so simple, to send the missiles down on the East, but her hand wavered at the console. The things they had done, to her, to the tribes, towns, an entire region trampled under the Bull…

…and those who lived under it, people like Mara, like Violet, ones who had never had a chance to escape.

_Always the short-term, isn’t it? What happens after? Hm?_

_Would you rest at night, with that on your conscience?_

She looked to ED-E, hovering low near the panel, trying to catch her eye. “You’re sure?” He drifted up to her eye level, silent. “And it’s the only way?”

He beeped at her, nearly inaudible in the scream of the alarm. She shut her eyes, feeling tears spill over, concentrating on the message. She rested a hand on the eyebot’s grille, and he butted into it gently. “Okay.” The word got stuck on the tightness in her throat. “Okay, ED-E. If… this’s what you want.” Unbidden, she brushed at him a little as she pulled away, as though tucking back a wayward bit of hair.

Adal had to hold her breath to keep the sound welling up in her silent, and stepped aside. “Go ahead,” she said. “Thank you… and goodbye.”

The klaxon changed in tone as she backed away, the burst of music from ED-E broken, distorted, almost lost in it. She turned to run as the explosions began, the missile at the front of the temple raining shrapnel across the floor. She put her head down and charged for the elevator, reeling from a blast at her side. Adal nearly fell as she lurched through the doors, slamming a fist on the control panel.

She turned as the doors slid shut, watching as her view of the roiling hellfire beyond was cut off. Ulysses was nowhere to be seen, either gone some other way or still in the silo—she didn’t much care. Back to the wall, she let her legs give way, sitting hard and pulling off the gas mask.

She wasn’t sure how long she sat there, but her throat was raw when the sobbing finally ended, tracks down her face hot with tears. Her chest felt hollow, empty, but for a burning in the pit of it. Slowly, she rolled to all fours, standing inch by inch until she was upright, feet feeling nailed to the ground as the rest of her drifted. She made herself lift a leaden foot, and set it down in front of her. The other. Again.

The door to the temple opened on dim predawn light, the sickly Divide sky shading from gray to orange. She shut her eyes as she tried to summon the strength to go further.

A snatch of song rose up in her mind, a steady walking chant. Her lips moved with it, trying to remember the words, something about a woman, a townie, who left her home for the road…

The jody took her down into the ruins of Ashton, before she even realized. Adal could feel the eyes on her, marked men and other creatures, but the ruins were deathly still. Throat rough and swollen, she made herself sing on, walk on, until the words ran out. When they did, she licked her lips, steps faltering on the High Road. A new verse, then. One of a woman, a Walker, who had seen the end of her road. Had seen it and taken one Long Walk more, before she stopped at last, sadder and wiser.

The morning drew brighter, red and acrid, as she sang of going home.


End file.
